The Cricket Statistician No 195

31 It will be seen that two-thirds of his centuries and almost exactly two-thirds of his runs were scored as an opener. Of his twelve Test Match centuries, the highest seven were as an opening batsman. His success against Australia in both positions can be seen as follows: In NO Runs HS Av. 100 50 Opening 36 1 1692 175 48.34 4 8 Batting at 3/4 21 2 952 115* 50.10 3 5 The story of his changes in batting position makes interesting reading. His first appearance at no. 3 came in the Test Match following his 310* against New Zealand. It was to prove an uncomfortable experience against South Africa, a first innings duck followed by retiring hurt for 7 after being struck on the head by a bouncer bowled by Peter Pollock. Success was to follow in Australia in 1965/66, when he batted at no. 3 throughout the series, and in 1970/71, when he began at no. 4 after Alan Knott was promoted as night-watchman; Edrich then batted at no. 3 for the first half of the series before reverting to opener in the second half following injuries firstly to Brian Luckhurst and then to Geoff Boycott. Against Australia in England he always opened the batting, usually with great success. However, in 1972, after scoring 110 for Surrey against the Australians, he experienced a lean series, scoring only 218 runs (his average of 21.80 is strangely similar to Geoff Boycott’s 21.91 on the 1978-79 tour of Australia). One strange aspect was that in the first two Test Matches it was Brian Luckhurst who batted at no. 3 with disappointing scores of 14, 0, 1 and 4. (Similarly in one Test during the West Indies tour of 1973/74 Geoff Boycott had batted out of position at no. 4 and scored only 10 and 13). Luckhurst had until then enjoyed great success as an opening batsman for England and when he reverted to opener in the third Test in the absence of Geoff Boycott, he responded with scores of 23 and 96. Why had Luckhurst been placed in a position in which he was not accustomed and in which Edrich had proved to be comfortable? The reason was perhaps John Edrich’s experience in the 1971 Test Matches against Pakistan and India; batting at no. 3 in five of the six matches he had registered a poor run of scores, including the last three of his six ducks at Test level. The contrast between Luckhurst’s success as an opener and his failures at no. 3 was to be seen again briefly in 1973 when the experiment was repeated. The following analysis of Luckhurst’s career is in extreme contrast to the consistency of John Edrich: In NO Runs HS Av. 100 50 Opening 33 5 1231 131 43.96 4 5 Not opening 8 0 67 23 8.37 - - After these two poor seasons in 1971 and 1972 Edrich was dropped from the Test side, but returned with greater success at no. 3 or no. 4 against India and Pakistan in 1974 and Australia in 1974/75. He finished his Test career in 1975 and 1976 where he had begun in 1963 – as an opening batsman. There were many fine opening batsman in England at the time – Geoff Boycott was without doubt the greatest, Brian Luckhurst and Dennis Amiss had their successes in the midst of some failures and Mike Harris was surely deserving of some recognition at Test level, but all in all my favourite was John Edrich, of whom we may have many fond memories.